Contents

In March 2017 AMD announced a server platform based on the Zen microarchitecture, codenamed Naples, and officially revealed it under the brand name Epyc in May.[2] That June, AMD officially launched Epyc by releasing the Epyc 7000 series processors.[3]

The platform includes one- and two-socket systems. In multi-processor configurations, two Epyc CPUs communicate via AMD's Infinity Fabric.[4] Each chip supports 8 channels of memory and 128 PCIe 3.0 lanes, of which 64 lanes are used for CPU-to-CPU communication through Infinity Fabric when installed in a dual-processor configuration.[5] All Epyc processors are composed of four eight-core Zeppelin dies (the same die as found in Ryzen processors) in a multi-chip module, with the varying product core counts produced by symmetrically disabling cores of each core complex on each Zeppelin die.[6][7]

Initial reception to Epyc was generally positive.[8] Epyc was found to perform very well in cases where the cores could work independently, such as in high performance computing and big data applications. Epyc fell behind in database tasks, reflecting the slower communication between cores compared to Intel's competitive Xeon parts.[8]